Steve Hockstein/BloombergA bill to be considered by the state Legislature Thursday would allow NJPAC to turn around and sell a parcel of the arts center's site to insurance giant Prudential for a planned office tower.

NEWARK — Lawmakers are expected to vote Thursday on a complex bill designed to help the New Jersey Performing Arts Center jump-start a mission it has tried to get launched for 20 years: the redevelopment of Newark’s downtown.

Tucked into a bill that expands urban tax credits is an unrelated passage that would transfer ownership of NJPAC’s 12-acre site from the state to the nonprofit arts organization.

If the bill passes, it would allow NJPAC to turn around and sell a parcel of the site to insurance giant Prudential for a planned office tower.

Several lawmakers and NJPAC officials say there is nothing mysterious about the bill. The arts center was designed to be an economic engine for the state’s largest city and the extra land around it was always intended for development. The state signed a 99-year lease with NJPAC in 1996, the year before the $187 million arts center opened.

But no one at Prudential or NJPAC will talk about the transaction between the nonprofit arts center and its largest corporate donor. Prudential has given NJPAC more than $24 million, according to NJPAC spokesman Jeffrey Norman. NJPAC’s 2,750-seat Prudential Hall is named for the company and Prudential’s CEO John Strangfeld is a member of NJPAC’s governing board.

Former Gov. Tom Kean, one of the forces behind the deal, said the original plan called for NJPAC to profit from its success.

"Lincoln Center, which I modeled the idea upon, got no benefit whatsoever out of the tremendous boon that the area around it had within 20 years," Kean said. "I didn’t want to make the mistake I thought they made. I wanted to make sure PAC benefitted. As the PAC prospered, the land could be more valuable, and it would be less dependent on the state."

Kean speculated the land wasn’t transferred outright to the arts center because the project was considered a risk.

"Early in the 90s, PAC’s future was not totally assured," he said. "We had acquired the land, started the project, but it wasn’t 100 percent sure that future governors would back it as needed."

The transfer would bring Prudential one step closer to building a new office tower on a piece of land across the street from NJPAC that is currently used as a parking lot. Last month, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority approved a tax incentive package worth up to $250.8 million over 10 years to help persuade Prudential build at the site.

Despite the EDA’s approval of their Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit application, Prudential officials are mum about their plans.

"We have yet to make a decision," company spokesman Bob DeFillippo said. "We are still in the process of evaluating a number of things."

Asked about the prospective deal, Lawrence P. Goldman, CEO of the arts center’s redevelopment company, declined to be interviewed. Instead, he released a statement that explained how economic changes have made financing private development more difficult.

"We discovered in working with prospective private sector partners that the chain of land ownership needs to be simplified in order for projects to be financeable," Goldman said.

Located near Military Park, NJPAC’s land was acquired by the EDA in the early 1990s through $21.5 million in bond funding. The EDA leased to land to the state, which in turn leases it to the arts center.

Since its opening, NJPAC has attracted more than 5 million people to performances by the world’s top entertainers, including singer Paul Simon, pianist Lang Lang, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and great orchestras from around the globe.